This Blog is dedicated to all things to do with Building Information Modeling.
I'll be blogging about challenges that I come across as BIM Manager as well as points of interest that are related to BIM. Blogs on tips and technical "How-too's" to help you out with creating your BIM models correctly.
This Blog is not sponsored or endorsed by, or affiliated with, Autodesk, Inc.

Thursday, 26 May 2016

"CIO...? What's that?" I hear you say.Chief Information Officer.. I like that title... so much better than BIM Manager don't you think!Many of us have made that transition from CAD Manager to BIM Manager, many of us are finding that the role of BIM manager is growing beyond the scope of managing the project Building Information Model and more involved in the operational aspects of the business.The transition from traditional 2D CAD to 3D BIM is probably more complex than we ever imagined. It's impact on the overall design and construction process is EPIC... yes I said Epic!It affects not only how we produce our printed drawings (ugh..until the model supersedes flat printed drawings!) but also the business of design and our flow of operations involving everyone from the VP's to the tech's.And who's on the front lines.... the BIM Manager! (in my opinion).Robert Green, yes you know him from his CAD Manager blog, or Cadlyst articles or have had the opportunity to be in one of his session at numerous conferences, has recently writen an article specific to this topic on the new CAD Managers Center site. Very insightful!Read his article here: http://cadmanager.autodesk.com/competitive-advantage/how-to-advance-from-cad-manager-to-cio/Also check out the resources available on the CAD Managers Center site. Worth checking out and bookmarking.Are you a CIO in the making? Your firm or office may not even know that they need a CIO, just like they didn't know they needed a BIM Manager until it became apparent.

Great advice I've followed for most of my career, "Take on the Role that you Aspire too".Sc.

Thursday, 12 May 2016

1. Never
leave inserted AutoCAD DWGs in a Revit model. Although you can insert a
block or drawing into Revit it can cause severe performance and stability
issues. DWG files bloat the model by using far more memory than pure Revit
entities. If the AutoCAD file is necessary as a background, linking the file in
rather than importing it can prevent and reduce some of these issues.

2. Don’t
let unresolved Revit warnings languish. Large numbers of unresolved
warnings can seriously degrade model performance and stability. Resolve
warnings as they occur to keep them from building up in the model. Periodically
check the “Warnings” tool on the “Manage” ribbon to see what warnings (if any)
have built up in the model.

3. Don’t use Revit
Families from Manufacturers without checking them first. Building Product
Manufacturers are responding to your requests for Revit content by having
families of their products created in Revit. These families may look great when
viewed, but if they contain too much detail they can quickly bloat your model.

4. Don’t
over-model. One of the most common mistakes among new users of Revit is to
put too much detail in the model. Determine how much detail is really necessary
to convey your design intent, and then monitor your team to prevent
over-modeling.

5. Don’t use in-place families too often.
While it is inevitable that you will have to use in-place families in a
typical project, be selective in their use. If you create an in-place family
and later decide that it should be a component family, there is absolutely no
way to convert it. If you must use an in place family, do not duplicate it. For
example, if you have to use in-place families to create light coves in several
rooms, create them all in one in-place family; don’t create a different in-place
family for each room.

6. Don’t
over-constrain model geometry in a project file. Dimension and alignment
constraints add overhead to the file and increase the potential for the dreaded
“constraints not satisfied” error message. If you’re not absolutely sure that
you should constrain something, then you probably shouldn’t.

7. Don’t
lose control of your views. Exercise good view management. Don’t create
unnecessary views and don’t leave views unnamed. During the course of a
project, the project browser can become populated with a large number of unnecessary
views that add to file size.

8. Don’t
over-use Groups. An inordinate number of groups in a project can impact
performance and bloat the model. Make sure to purge unused groups from the
model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the
Array tool.

Friday, 6 May 2016

·Be selective about which worksets you decide to open. Avoid
opening worksets that are not needed for the work you are doing in the project.
Limiting the amount of worksets will speed up the process of opening and saving
the project.

·Close unused views
on a regular basis while you are working on the project.

·Before saving to Central
or closing the project close all your hidden views using the Close Hidden tool, Revit only loads into
memory what it displays so this will save memory the next time the file is
opened, this can also be used before plotting to increase the amount of
available RAM.

·Create a new Local file
daily rather than rely on the Reload
Latest command to update your current Local
file.

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Warnings - These get ignored and pile up and some of
these are more offensive than others. Room, space and area errors caused by
boundary issues or redundancy is wasting your cpu's time. Any warning is a
waste of "space" and "resources" to some degree.

View
Detail - Do you have a lot
of views that are using fine or medium detail level but have scales like
1/16", 1/8"=1'-0" (1:200, 1:100, 1:50)? These views won't really
show this level of detail for all elements effectively and you are asking the
computer to show it anyway.

Unused
Content - Families that are
not going to be used at all can contributed to some bloat. Especially if they
are complex families that are quite large to begin with. Purge out any unused
families, if you’re not sure export the families into a container file before
purging the project file.

Compact
Central - An
oversimplification, it is akin to the operating system performing
defragmentation of your computer's hard drive. Think of it as asking Revit to
clean up after a busy day, it allows Revit to reduce file size.

Create
New Central File
- Open the Central file with the “detach from Central” box checked, and then
save as a new Central file with a different file name, or to a different
location on their server. What this does is it rewrites the database associated
with the file and can dramatically reduce the file size.

Audit
your Families
– You can check the file size of your families simply by “export family types”
then going through the family list to check the file size. You’ll easily be
able to spot large family files at a glance.

Limit custom crop regions –
Custom crop regions are “resource intense”, you computer has to think every
time you go to that view, reducing the amount of custom crop regions will help
reduce the file size.

Limit 3D views – Keep
the number of 3D views in your project to a minimum where possible. Similar to custom
crop regions, 3D views are “resource intense”.

Limit imported images – Images
can easily inflate your file size, if you have any background images for
rendering or images in your title block that you need to keep, look at reducing
the image file size by as much as possible without compromising the quality of
the image.

Export Renderings and
walk-thru’s –Any renderings or walkthroughs created in
Revit increase your file size, by exporting these you can dramatically reduce
the file size.

Limit the use of Groups and
Array’s –Large numbers of groups
and array’s in a project can bloat the model. Purge unused groups from the
model regularly and turn off the “Group and Associate” option when using the
Array tool.

About Me

Scott Chatterton is the BIM and Quality Control Manager for HDR|CEI. Scott has over 25 years of industry experience and has a long history of using Autodesk products as an architectural technician, Autodesk-certified AEC instructor, CAD manager, and now as a BIM and Quality Control manager.
Scott has experience as an authorized, certified Instructor of the Revit and AutoCAD product line, specializing in architectural design, and is currently a certified professional in both Revit and AutoCAD and building performance analysis.
Scott’s extensive knowledge enables him to create and apply efficient design and construction practices using the latest BIM technology and techniques. As a result of his experience, Scott is a sought-after author and presenter at BIM-related conferences, addressing ideas on BIM workflow, processes and protocols.
Scott is also on the board of directors for the Canada BIM Council, a member of the advisory board for various education institutions such as Thompson Rivers University, and a BIM adviser for Okanagan College, Southern Interior Construction Association, Athabasca University, and Vancouver College.